The managing editors and entire editorial board of Mathematical Logic Quarterly, a Wiley title, have resigned, citing “unilateral decisions” by the publisher “that affected the editorial process.”
“We do not believe that Wiley is currently providing an environment that allows the editors to do their editorial work according to the standards of the academic community and free from the negative influence of commercial and profit-oriented interests,” the editors wrote in their resignation letter.
The editors have launched a new journal with a “diamond” open-access model, not charging fees to read or publish papers.
“We are always proud to partner with the academic community to deliver high-quality scholarship that moves the world forward,” a Wiley spokesperson said in a statement. “We regretfully accept these resignations and wish the former editors success in their new endeavor.”
The journal is the latest of many additions to our Mass Resignations List, which documents walkouts and resignations at nearly two dozen journals since 2023, often citing tensions between academic editors and for-profit publishers.
The resignations include all 20 members of the editorial board, as well as managing editor Deirdre Haskell, who is listed as the managing editor of the newly announced journal. The other two managing editors, Manuel Bodirsky and Klaus Meer, are still under contract but will resign as soon as their contract allows, the letter stated.
The German-language mathematical society Deutsche Vereinigung für Mathematische Logik und für Grundlagenforschung der exakten Wissenschaften (DVMLG) has had a publishing agreement with Wiley for the journal since 2010. The society has also informed the publisher it will not renew the agreement ending this year.
Wiley acquired the journal in 1999, and the society has nominated the journal’s editors since 2011.
“The editors and managing editors of MLQ reported that the attitudes and procedures of Wiley have changed considerably in the last few years and that commercial and profit-oriented interests are now influencing the editorial process negatively,” the letter stated.
The letters of the DVMLG and resigning editors share language on how they believe scientific publishing should work, such as making research results free to read and publish.
Both groups state they believe the editorial process should be controlled by “an editorial team consisting of members of the academic research community that are entirely free from pressure or influence of commercial and profit-oriented interests.” Publishers, they write, should “provide the editorial team with an environment that efficiently assists them in their task and conforms to the specifications of the academic research community.”
“There is a tension between the interests of commercial and profit-oriented publishers and the main purposes of academic publishing,” both letters stated. “A cooperation of the academic community with a commercial, profit-oriented publisher is only fruitful if the publisher respects the expectations and demands of the academic community.”
The name of the new journal, ZML: Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, hearkens back to the original name of Mathematical Logic Quarterly at its founding in 1955, according to information provided by Benedikt Löwe, a former managing editor who will serve as coordinating editor of the new title.
Cambridge University Library will provide indexing, digital hosting and preservation, and assign an ISSN and DOIs to ZML’s papers, according to the letter announcing the journal’s launch. Some members of the editorial board are financing the journal’s management, typesetting and submission system.
“We, the editors of ZML, support true open access removing all barriers to access,” according to the letter. The journal will publish papers and make them available to read for free. The editors write they “believe that the scientific content of research journals must be under the sole control of the academic community and should be free from any commercial or profit-oriented influence.”
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This seems to be exactly the right thing to do to liberate scientific reviewing, editing, and publishing from commercial considerations. I often wonder what would happen if all universities would band together and use the funds that they now invest into subscriptions for commercially published journals to fund open/diamond-access journals that replace all the important journals currently owned by publishers. That’s got to be a more sustainable and scientifically viable way of dealing with the publication issue.
Hear, hear. We didn’t go into research to make publishers rich.
Why do we even need journals? Just deploy an open source peer review system, set up a WordPress site with DOI-links to arXiv and a “this work was peer reviewed” badge, and be done with it? Granted, it might not work with disciplines that still use Word and have to deal with its typesetting mess.
I support this!
Who would think that there would be significant “pressure or influence” in mathematics!
Not a word about how this nice, purist approach would actually sustsain those 20 or so editors, though?… (What’s that “diamond model”?) I would sleep much better had I seen it taken care of, not just the bonfire.
What would there be to sustain? Currently you only get a minor honorarium when you’re editing a journal, and most editors don’t do it for the money anyway. I’m sure that many would do it pro bono, provided that their work helps to uphold scientific standards and journal production is handled professionally. What would be needed, though, is payment for those people who behind the scenes do all the formating of manuscripts and whipping them into the final publication format. That’s where the funding could come from universities (and, of course, for guaranteeing continued server space and web access). Many universities already have their own publication departments and thus the expertise to handle journal production in principle, provided that they can use the money originally needed to support subscriptions for employing necessary personnel and keeping those servers running.
“[F]ormating of manuscripts and whipping them into the final publication format” is done by the authors. The journal provides a LaTeX template and the authors submit their manuscript as LaTeX source code after acceptance. Mathematicians prefer complete control over the typesetting of their formulas, so use of LaTeX is ubiquitous.